There is a point in Ulysses where Joyce paints a vivid picture of chaos unrestrained. His protagonists "set all masts erect, manned the yards, sprang their luff, heaved to, spread three sheets in the wind, put her head between wind and water, weighed anchor, ported her helm, ran up the Jolly Roger, let the bullgine run, pushed off in their bumboat and put to sea to recover the main of America".
No doubt many a doctorate has been awarded for deconstruction of the elements of this lengthy passage, but we have the authority of no less a person than Charles Dickens for the correct inference from one particular phrase. In Dombey and Son, we are told that "Captain Cuttle looking at Bunsby more attentively, perceived that he was three sheets in the wind, or, in plain words, drunk".
"Three sheets in the wind" can be traced to that strange custom aboard sailing ships of never calling a rope a rope, but naming it esoterically according to the function it performs.
Thus a halyard, according to my interpretation of what the experts tell me, holds things - usually sails - vertically; a sheet holds things horizontally; and a line holds things more or less rigidly in place. Most importantly, the main sheet controls the mainsail, and two others - the windward sheet and the leeward sheet - control something called the headsail.
Now seasoned mariners will no doubt reach immediately for their quills and Quink at this shallow, and perhaps erroneous, exposition of the technicalities, but the metaphor is plain enough: if one sheet is loose, a sail flaps in the wind and a ship's progress is unsteady; two sheets "in the wind", and control becomes extremely difficult; and with "three sheets in the wind", a ship reels erratically in the manner of a drunken sailor.
Some, however, believe the nautical derivation of the term "three sheets in the wind" is even more imaginative. In olden times, if a sheet broke under strain, it was necessary for a sailor to secure both it and the wildly flailing canvas as soon as possible, before the massive sail would flap itself to pieces. It was a dangerous task: one touch by a wire sheet, and a hapless sailor might find himself swept overboard to almost certain death.
The story goes that a volunteer who successfully secured a sheet that was "in the wind" was given a generous tot of rum as a reward. A sailor, therefore, who had secured "three sheets in the wind", and lived to drink his just deserts, was likely to end up happy - but extremely drunk.